please empty your brain below
(suggestions preferred, not moans)

diamond geezer | Homepage | 28.08.25 - 12:00 a.m. | #

Just two or three days ago I was downstairs on a bus with someone playing stuff on their phone.

I got my phone out and put on loud music I knew he would not like. The other people stared at me and I explained I was doing it to drown out the noise I had to endure from his phone. Dramatic but it worked. Although he didn't totally stop, he played it very quietly as if making a final notional act of defiance.

Pedantic of Purley | 28.08.25 - 7:24 a.m. | #

I was on a Scotrail train earlier this year, and while passing through, the conductor said to a miscreant "sound down mate, the train's for everyone" - which I thought was a very succinct way of getting the message across. It worked, too.

martin | 28.08.25 - 7:41 a.m. | #

It is not so much the intensity it is the duration of the disturbance that gets to me.

One-sided monologues (please don't label them as conversations) are the worst, as you are inexorably drawn into that person's problem.

Therefore, all mobile devices should be automatically muted after two minutes, say, Service could return after 10 minutes, say, to accommodate people who are prone to disasters befelling them.

Simply get off your chosen mode of public transport and normal service would be resumed. Simples!

Ken | 28.08.25 - 7:49 a.m. | #

On trains I have sometimes resorted to moving seats when forced to listen to somebody's recorded content. But rather than moving away, I've sat closely next to the offender, leant in and stared at their device, while explaining with a smile that "If I have to listen to it over there, I thought I might as well watch it too". Responses vary, but are usually good natured.. not been punched yet.

Frank F | 28.08.25 - 7:50 a.m. | #

But if everyone has headphones on, they won't hear certain announcements meaning that things won't get seen, said or sorted.

Yes please for quiet carriages, as long as this also includes adequate sound proofing from excessive rail noises.

NickW | 28.08.25 - 8:09 a.m. | #

My carefully honed ability, trained over years of corporate meetings where nothing ever gets done, of being able to tune *anything* out is now my superpower. I think a decibel limit would be difficult to enforce when the trains themselves regularly exceed it.

Being serious for a moment, the problem exists but I've not seen it being a widespread, everyday annoyance like some other quirks of humanity I can think of. I'd sooner see a "Wear your bloody deodorant" campaign.

Chz | 28.08.25 - 8:24 a.m. | #

I used to buy a load of those incredibly cheap earbuds (the sort that airlines give you that cost £1) to literally give out to people. Harder now that nobody has jacks on their phone and there are too many standards :(

Chris D | 28.08.25 - 8:25 a.m. | #

I suspect it's more likely to be Gen Z on TikTok, not millenials!

tomb | 28.08.25 - 8:34 a.m. | #

its not just millennials and teenagers yobs that do it though - round where I live theres a a large Bangladeshi community and grown adults are all on the train ( district line ) playing their phones through the speakers, and theyre idiots, all of them.

DCT | 28.08.25 - 8:37 a.m. | #

Why do receivers tell their caller "I'm on a bus."?

In the days of 2G phones, heartily fed up listening to one side of conversations, I invested in a phone jammer that blocked the signal for about 10m. Anyone start jabbering away, I would flick it on while the phoner looked quizically at their lack of signal bars.

One day sat on the back seat going home, after a long arduous day at work, a loud brash Arthur Dalyesque character started a noisy conversation. I flicked the jammer on and his signal soon evaporated. He then tried unsuccessfully to redial, cursing the phone, questioning its' parentage, and eventually throwing it on to the floor in anger where it broke into several pieces. Entertainment then silence. Paradise.

scrumpy | 28.08.25 - 8:37 a.m. | #

I really want to play something loud through my phone and GO AND SIT NEXT TO THEM to make my point - fear I would get thumped though 😐

Alan | 28.08.25 - 8:40 a.m. | #

recently spent four hours on the train to Edinburgh - and I £paid for first class too to make it more comfortable.

but the guy across the table from me got out his laptop, then his blue tooth headphones with mic … for what I hoped would be a ten minute call.

No, he had business calls for the ENTIRE four hour journey all the way and I had to sit and listen to them all, absolutely caring understanding nineties type.

Peter | 28.08.25 - 8:45 a.m. | #

I suspect the Mayoral PR team were worried that there had been no big announcements recently to keep his profile up so did this in desperation. About as futile as was Boris's ban on alcohol.

Andrew S | 28.08.25 - 9:00 a.m. | #

You mentioned it already and its such an easy solution, Switch off all the 4G and 5G connections nobody wanted underground anyway.

fishislandskin | 28.08.25 - 9:05 a.m. | #

How about...
not using the phone on speaker,
not using a tablet at full volume to keep a child occupied so that the parent can talk on speaker,
making everyone remove their backpack and put it on the floor?

Grumpy | 28.08.25 - 9:06 a.m. | #

I love Japan … a clean litterless organised society where everyone behaves perfectly and no one would ever dream of doing such a thing in fear of being labelled a social outcast. The Tokyo subway is a joyous thing to travel on ( except in rush hour when it’s rammed )

Somehow, this is just the society we have evolved into. And it will take more than a few colourful posters to adjust people’s behaviour.

anna | 28.08.25 - 9:21 a.m. | #

The most likely answer, at least for me, is...nothing else can really be done. Sure, you can tell people to stop blaring their music, but there's always the risk of confrontation and the like. And you can never guarantee that someone will stop.

Perhaps an ad campaign that will ultimately do nothing is the best that can be done.

All Over 2a | Homepage | 28.08.25 - 9:42 a.m. | #

Show the oldies how to Bluetooth their hearing aids to their phones.

MOTB | 28.08.25 - 9:51 a.m. | #

Agree with the Japanese culture - apart from the jingly little tunes constantly played at each station and/or exits, presumably as an identifier! But onboard itself - bliss!

I've decided it's almost impossible to change the behaviour of others so if their content/conversation becomes too irritating for me I just put on my own headphones and problem sorted!

Cornish Cockney | 28.08.25 - 12:03 p.m. | #

Japan - each station has its own jingle, that was mentioned earlier and on one of the NHK World programmes.

How many of the 300+ languages did TfL publish the poster in?

Still Anon | 28.08.25 - 12:46 p.m. | #

I was on a train where a woman was yelling down a phone and it was soon evident that she was some sort of social worker, broudcasting what should have been quite confidential details about a rather troubled person. Somebody from the far end of the carriage approached her and said 'please stop shouting' and everybody applauded.

kev | 28.08.25 - 1:17 p.m. | #

I believe that conventional telephones (ie on landlines) have a feedback mechanism that means you partly hear your own voice when talking, and thus have no reason to shout. Mobiles apparently don’t have this, hence all the shouting, and the intensely irritating digital tech also means caller and receiver can’t both talk at once, so often end up yelling to try and break into each other’s speech. If mobiles had a feedback mechanism built in, conversations might be quieter — though maybe not on the Northern or Victoria lines with screeching wheels — but I suspect sodcasters are probably impervious to anything short of someone seizing their phones and chucking them under the following train.

Labourer | 28.08.25 - 2:55 p.m. | #

Suggestion (10) would solve this problem immediately, ie by switching off all the specially provided mobile and Wi-Fi signals on the underground system., yet despite this new anti-noise campaign, TfL still waxes lyrical on their website about these services and their continued expansion.
Having said that, I have more sympathy for one-sided phone conversations as that’s much the same as if the person was talking to someone sitting next to them. What is intriguing is the amount of private and confidential information people seem prepared to broadcast to the world, from personal break-ups to potential business deals.

ActonMan | 28.08.25 - 3:23 p.m. | #

Solution: invest in some social draught excluders.

damoirl | 28.08.25 - 6:00 p.m. | #

I was once on a train where two lads were watching a (to them) uproarious film. Someone asked them to turn the sound down, so they obligingly fished out a pair of earphones and each stuck one earpiece in one ear. We then had to listen to their peals of laughter without knowing what the joke was ...

Peter (of Cambridge) | 28.08.25 - 6:52 p.m. | #

I'm surprised by the bravery of some of your commentators, I would imagine that confronting someone on public transport and telling them to stop doing what they are doing could turn out very unpleasantly. We live in a very aggressive society now where being a Karen could end up with you being seriously hurt. Be careful out there guys, it's a jungle.

Anyoldname | 28.08.25 - 7:33 p.m. | #

I suggest that in Japan things are more nuanced. People are very considerate and helpful but only once a relationship to the other person has been established or implied—perhaps that is true automatically within a train carriage. But when I lived in Japan, a group of student kodo drummers would happily practice late into the evening on a terrace near to my apartment. I mentioned this, as a peeve, to a friend from New York whose wife is Japanese-American, and who had lived in the UK. His response: "Yes, but what about bell-ringers?"

MartinG | 28.08.25 - 7:42 p.m. | #

Labourer - early phones didn't have any transistors in them (long before their invention): the amount you heard would be varied so that if a long way from the exchange, a quiet side tone would make you shout!

MartinG, church bells are lovely - they've been rung for far longer than anyone alive. But a chiming church clock in my (& DG's birth village) had its bell muted by one newbie complaining to the council: not long after an expensive overnight mute was fitted, the complainant moved out.

Nick K | 28.08.25 - 9:07 p.m. | #

Start a conversation. Ask the person what it is they are listening to or watching and what they like about it. I only tried this once and the person took the hint but I probably wouldn't take the risk again.

Steven Saunders | 28.08.25 - 9:20 p.m. | #

- Kev

Likewise .. was on holiday recently and had a cheeky Golden Arches breakfast. In there, was a guy with his laptop, headset and mic and completed a social security review about a person and much of their personal details all within earshot of me, including financial details and criminal history. It was bizarre.

The next day, I popped in for a coffee and was aghast to see the same person sitting at the same table again discussing personal details over a phone call about someone.

He was treating McD’s like his personal office - horrendous to think that this kind of person is involved with dealing with vulnerable people. No professionalism whatsoever.

David | 29.08.25 - 10:19 a.m. | #











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